Date of Conviction: 25/03/1800

Age at Conviction: 25

Crime Convicted of: Theft

Court Convicted at: Lancaster Assizes (held at Lancaster Castle)

Sentence Length: 7 Years

Ship Transported on: Earl Cornwallis

Where Arrived: Port Jackson, New South Wales

Departure Date: 18/11/1800

Arrival Date: 12/06/1801

Biography: Together, Mary and Maria Davis, both aged 25, tried to cash a stolen bill of exchange worth £9/11s in March 1800. They were tried together at the Lancaster Assizes, receiving equal 7 year sentences and were by each other’s sides during their first years in Australia.

After 7 months in Lancaster Castle’s dungeon tower, Mary and Maria were furnished with clothing and  transported to Gravesend with 11 other women, and put aboard the Earl Cornwallis, a ship carrying both male and female prisoners. It arrived in New South Wales in June 1801 after a sickly journey where many convicts had died of dysentery.

Only 3 months after arrival, Mary married convict William Howarth (of ship Barwell) at St John’s, Parramatta. The next wedding at the church would be Maria’s, just three weeks later. The two women were witnesses at each others’ weddings though neither could write and both signed their mark with an ‘x’.

Mary and William had no children of their own but did take in William’s orphaned nephew in 1809 after a cruel case of circumstances killed his brother from a snake bite, his mother abandoned the family and his father drowned all within two years; even the boy himself nearly died after getting lost for three days in the bush.

Mary got her certificate of freedom in July 1810. William, her husband died suddenly in 1811 and Mary was receiver of all his estate. She then married Lancastrian convict Francis Battie/ Beattie (ship- Indian) in 1812 and again, no children were recorded. He was convicted of receiving stolen goods in 1817 and was sent to Newcastle for 7 years and Mary moved there. In 1822 she was described as a convict in government employment but in 1825 the couple, both free, have a beer license and by 1828 her and Francis are described as sheriff’s bailiffs- she has a horse and 30 cows and ran the Crooked Billet Inn at Newcastle (NSW). In 1834 due to financial difficulties they sold the Crooked Billet and moved to the Australian Inn. Francis died late in 1835 and Mary soon after in 1836 aged 62. They are buried at Christ Church Burial Ground, right next to where their original inn was. Without any heirs, their livestock, farm equipment and household goods were auctioned that summer.